Will Expiration of Crop-Protection Patents Affect Cotton Pest Management Costs?.

Crop protection products, whether chemical pesticides or transgenic traits, are considered essential by most row crop growers. Both types of products are typically protected by multiple patents and heavily regulated. The principal impediment to bringing new crop-protection products to the market is the regulatory costs.  Typically when the patents covering a crop-protection product expire, new generic products based on the same active ingredient enter the market. Their entry is frequently facilitated by an agreement among the proprietor of the registration data package and the new market entrants. Subsequently, the price of such crop-protection products fall, and innovation in use of the active ingredient is stimulated. Cultivars with transgenic crop-protection traits dominate U.S. hectares planted with corn (Zea mays), soybean (Glycine max), canola (Brassica napus), sugar beet (Beta vulgaris), and cotton (Gossypium hirsutum). Such cultivars bring value to farmers, but have dramatically increased the price of planting seed. In the near future, key crop-protection trait patents will expire. An accord has been adopted among the principal holders of crop-protection trait patents that would provide a means to maintain international regulatory compliance and prevent disruption of US grain exports. However, cotton is unique relative to the other crops listed, and transgenic traits could be marketed in cotton without disrupting international markets. Fiber falls outside of most international regulation. Moreover 99% of U.S. cottonseed is sold domestically or in Canada or Mexico. This paper will illustrate the price dynamics of chemical harvest aids, chemical pesticides, and plant growth regulators commonly used in cotton before and after patent expiration, and explore challenges to achieving similar price dynamics for transgenic crop-protection traits in cotton.